Torn Asunder
by Gedia Kacela
Summary: Grief will do strange things to people. Some laugh, some cry. . . and some, like Auriga Sinistra, will do anything to pretend that Severus Snape will still walk back through the door.


Torn Asunder

She still watched the stars. They seemed further off now, not so bright. They had dimmed since he'd gone.

Gone.

That was how she referred to it. She could never actually say the words of what had really happened. She liked to pretend that he had simply walked out the door and hadn't come back yet.

Gone.

He'd be back. After all, he'd left his book lying open over the arm of that ridiculously worn chair he always sat in. She'd pestered him countless times to magically clean it. He, of course, being the stubborn bastard he was, had always refused. When he'd left, he'd promised to clean it when he came back if she would just let him go. He was going to be late.

Voldemort didn't like it when he was late.

She walked by that chair every day as she straightened the room, but couldn't quite bring herself to close the book or clean the chair. He would do it when he came back. He'd promised. Despite all the other horrid things he did, he did not break his promises.

It would only be a few more days, she told herself. You never knew how long he would be gone. But he would come back soon. And if she closed the book, he'd be upset with her for losing his spot. He hated to lose his spot. Especially in Shakespeare.

__

No longer mourn for me when I am dead 

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 

Give warning to the world that I am fled 

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: 

She sat down in his chair, with its worn spots and potion stains, and looked around the room. Not much had changed since he'd been gone. She'd organized the books (alphabetically by author, then chronologically in the order they'd been written- Snape had always hated that way of organization... he called it pointless), cleaned the cobwebs from the corner, and put away the teaset. She didn't feel like tea any more. Not without him. She drank water now, and pumpkin juice. Those things were safe, free of him.

When they'd told her that he was gone, they told her that she'd gone mad. She'd thrown her coffee mugs at the wall as the tears came, screaming at him as each shattered into coloured fragments.

~

__

"I hate you!" she yelled, her cheeks flushed in anger and tears welling in her eyes. "I hate you, you fucking bastard!"

"Auriga."

She turned towards the voice to see Albus standing at her door, McGonagall behind him. He looked old, far older than she'd ever seen him. She leaned back shakily against the wall, mindless of the shards of glass that cut into her bare feet as they protruded beneath her nightdress. "I hate him," she whispered.

He stepped into the room, his blue gaze taking in the scene. "I know," he said, moving towards her. "Come with me, dear." His hand extended to her.

She looked at the ground and shook her head. "I need... I need to clean up. Before he comes back. He always says I make more mess than I'm worth, you know."

He took her arm, slowly guiding her through the sharp-edged litter on the ground towards the door. "Auriga," he said softly, "he's not coming back."

~

Gone.

She was still waiting, watching the door. She slept in his old robes for fear that she would forget the scent of him, the vague aroma (was that the right word? she wasn't sure) of potions and slight sweat and... cinnamon. Always the cinnamon. She slept wrapped in that smell, since his arms were absent from around her. She always found it strange that they fell asleep together and how right it felt. She always found it strange that she enjoyed his touch instead of shuddered from it, that she needed his kiss instead of cringed away from it.

She always found it strange that Shakespeare suited them both.

~

__

She'd been calm once Albus had sent her off to dress and taken her from her (their) room. She'd been silent, stunned into subservience. She was simply the demure Astronomy professor with the frizzy hair and glasses that slid down her nose.

Snape hated that.

As she thought of this, she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, in case he would walk around the corner and see her. But then she realized.

He wasn't going to walk around the corner.

They hadn't heard from him in over two weeks, they said. A few days without reporting in was understandable, they said, but not two weeks. Their spies were doing all they could, they said, to locate him. He was very valuable in the War, they said, and they would hate to lose him.

Hate to lose him.

Like he was just a tool in this whole mess, a misplaced key.

He was more than that, wasn't he?

She wasn't sure, but she rather thought he was. He was Shakespeare on a winter night, the smell of brewing potions waking her from where she had fallen asleep at his desk waiting for him to return, a Mozart piece played at midnight when no one but her was around to hear, an admission of affection hidden by sarcasm.

"You're unbearable."

"Thank you."

~

The room was silent now. His classroom was empty. She had gone down a few weeks after first hearing that he was... gone... and had destroyed everything. They were getting a new teacher, a replacement until next year, and he would arrive the week following. She didn't want him to touch his things. They weren't his. Systematically and quite calmly, she'd gone through the entire classroom and thrown everything away. She had emptied his desk drawers of everything- graded papers, extra quills, Potions texts, stupid notes that she'd given him- and burned it all before Albus could stop her. His store of potions and various concoctions was gone, ruined by her.

All that remained untouched by her was the book of Shakespeare that lay over the arm of the chair.

She swallowed as she looked at it. He would want to read it when he got back. He would be mad that the new teacher was making such a mess of his classroom. The man was a former Hufflepuff who looked nothing like Severus and whose chalk squeaked on the board when he wrote. He didn't take points from Gryffindor and turned nervous whenever Auriga came by the classroom. She supposed it was because of what had happened the first day he had come.

Take the rest of the year off, Albus had told her. Everyone had agreed. And so she had done as they said, given up her position to a pretty blonde witch who made her feel less-than-beautiful. The day the new Potions professor had arrived, she had found herself in the dungeons, standing in the doorway and watching him wordlessly. He had brown hair and was balding, with full cheeks and a fuller stomach. His things were scattered across Severus' desk, which seemed so wrong, since he was only there until Snape returned. He shouldn't be so inconsiderate.

There was a coffee mug on the desk. 

__

"Fuck off, you overgrown bat."

That was the first time that she had realized, truly realized, that he was... gone. She hadn't realized that tears had been rolling down her cheeks until Neville Longbottom came up to her and offered her his grungy handkerchief.

~

__

"Stop blubbering, will you?" he sneered, at the same time pulling a folded white handkerchief from his breast pocket and tossing it in her lap. "One would think you'd never been proposed to."

"I haven't, you idiot."

"Grand. So I had to get the emotional breakdown." He sat down beside her. "Wipe your eyes, you look like a bloody raccoon. I don't know why you wear that shite anyway."

She blew her nose loudly. "It's supposed to make me look alluring."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Honestly, Auriga, nothing you could do could accomplish that."

She elbowed him in the side. "Bastard."

"Wench."

"I love you."

He smirked slightly, a triumphant thing- the arrogant prat. "Does that mean you accept?"

Turning to him, she lay her hand lightly over his and waggled her ring finger. "I'll consider it."

~

She hadn't realized how long she stood there, staring senselessly at the chalkboard filled with unfamiliar writing, until the new teacher had approached her and asked if she needed something. 

She'd shaken her head. No, she didn't. She was fine.

But she wasn't.

He was gone.

She'd thrown the coffee mug at the chalkboard. Speaking of which, she still needed to apologize to Neville.

__

"Disgustingly inept child, Auriga. I don't see why you waste your time on him."

"He'd do fine if you didn't paralyze him with fear, Sev."

"Fear is a way of life, like death. We all must face it sooner or later."

"Maybe he'd prefer later. Wouldn't you?"

~

The window was open, allowing in the blast of winter chill. But she made no move to close the drapes and instead gaze idly outside. The stars were out. They always were, it seemed. She strained her neck to see if she could find the Ophiuchus constellation, but didn't seem to be able to pick it out. She never could anymore.

__

"Get your head out of the stars, Auriga, and pay attention to me, for bloody once."

Shaking her head and sending her carelessly groomed hair into a whirl around her face, she pulled her eyes away from the window and refocused on the book. Her fingers ran lightly, carefully, over the spine. It was old, one of his favorites.

Gently, she picked up the volume of sonnets, taking care to keep his place, and turned it over in her hands. The smell of must and old parchment enveloped her, a scent as familiar as coffee and cinnamon. Her brow furrowed slightly as she stared down at the pages. There was a separate piece of parchment slid into the binding, creased and new and filled with his small, sharp handwriting.

__

Nay, if you read this line, remember not 

The hand that writ it; for I love you so, 

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, 

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

For a moment, she couldn't move. Had this been there before? All along? She was frozen, the only sound in the room coming from her uneven breaths. After several minutes dragged by, she forced herself to pull the folded parchment from the book and open it. It was decidedly Severus- curt, formal, and to the point as ever.

__

Auriga, it began. Not 'my dear' or any other niceties. That somehow wouldn't be right.

_I fear I won't be returning to you after tonight. Voldemort knows of my treachery- has known for a while, I presume, but has bided His time, feeding me false information, baiting me on until now. But the farce is over and I must go. I know you would protest- you always do, annoyingly enough- but it is my fate. If I run, He will follow or will, which is my greater fear, come for you. Therefore, it must be this way. Forgive me for not telling you, but I knew you would make a fuss- crying and such. You're so damn predictable, sometimes. It is better for me to leave you without your knowledge of the future. My advice, my strong, strong advice, is to forget me. Attachments make one weak, especially when snatched away so abruptly. Do what you must to accomplish this, but know that my parting will not be painful, for you will be in my mind. What is Death to the distraction of your bloody glasses?_

Yours, Severus S. Snape.

Know this before I leave... My only regret is that I did not marry you before this. Do find another Professor Sandersought to stalk in my absence.

His signature blurred suddenly, the ink spreading across the crisp parchment from a sudden drop of moisture. Merlin's beard, was she crying? She hadn't cried since Minerva had told her. When Hagrid had tearfully pushed a boxful of Severus' belongings into her arms and given her a hairy hug, she hadn't cried. Not even when she had come across the star chart with the Sinistra star circled. Her tears had run dry.

__

O! if,—I say, you look upon this verse, 

When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, 

But let your love even with my life decay; 

Gripping the paper in hand, she stood from the ratty chair and replaced the book carefully in its place before taking a few paces across the room. So he had known, the bastard. He had known all along and had never told her, not given her so much as a hint that he would not be coming back.

Bastard.

She hated him, she really did. She always had.

And she had thought that she would always be able to.

But he was gone.

She took the book in hand once again and slid the slightly-crumpled letter back into place, between sonnets 26 and 27. Then she closed the book and crossed to the bookshelves, putting the volume back where it belonged. Her fingers lingered on the exposed spine, like callused skin burned and roughened by potions. 

"Goodbye, Sev," she whispered, then turned away.

Outside, the stars still burned, though now so dim, like the faint scent of cinnamon from their- her- closet.

The door closed silently behind her as she left her quarters and made her way down the winding corridors. Perhaps... perhaps it was time for some coffee.

Lest the wise world should look into your moan, 

And mock you with me after I am gone.

END.

Notes: A sad little S/S inspired by the even more sad For the Weary by Milla (drama-princess) and by rifling through Shakespeare Sonnets.

Poem used was Sonnet LXXI.


End file.
